My good friend Zeno says to me you can have your jam for free, nothing’s lost except by halves the future never meets the past. So in I dipped my eager blade to test this wondrous promise made. I scraped about the empty glass for evidence of my repast. Alas, the jar seemed quite remiss and jam on toast was sorely missed. Well, never mind, dear Zeno said. At least you have your daily bread and I assure you not a bite will frustrate future appetite. For once you’ve swallowed half that loaf half remains, and half’s the most. Munch and chew to hearts content, the boundless half remains unspent. Alas, I’m left with meagre crumbs and a whole whose parts are not its sum. CraigSpenceWriter.ca
Category: Philosophy
The heart of ‘spiritual existentialism’
A recent Facebook conversation triggered by the graphic above has shed some light on why I am a spiritual existentialist, and what that means. Before the concluding reply below, I had described my daily morning mediation, which includes a vow to ‘value life’…
‘Value life’ is an interesting ethical statement, one I affirm daily, even though it inevitably and immediately leads to contradiction. To live, I must kill. How can I square that with my ideal of valuing life?
I think that’s pertinent to the original question: What are the limits of comprehension? Try as I might, I can’t round that square ethical peg. I have to decide, and reaffirm my beliefs in spite of uncertainty. That tension between believing and knowing keeps us questioning and reevaluating who, what and why we are. It’s the essence of existentialism.
My spiritual self is always looking into the world and saying there’s more to life than I’ve learned and experienced so far. There’s a love that’s larger then what I can conceive, an idea grander than anything I can imagine, a sensation more vibrant than anything I’ve felt.
Existential Philosophy, Psychology, and Literature / Oct. 17, 2021
Summing up: The heart of spiritual existentialism is the tension between belief, doubt and hope.
Value Life – an ethical focus
Over the years I have been contemplating and expanding a set of practical ethical statements that give structure and meaning to my day-to-day activities. A clearly defined ethics synchronizes my behaviour with the world around me in a way that accords with my core beliefs.
I meditate upon the following statements most mornings, centring myself and trying to better understand my role in society and nature.
- Value Life
- I am defined by what I am-not, as much as by who I think I am
- Give with joy and grace
- Receive with gratitude and appreciation
- Live the tetrahedron, express my physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual aspects
Reminding myself of these principles every day helps me become the type of person I want to be, and deepens my commitment to living well. I have no desire to convince others that these are ethical standards they should adopt; on the other hand, I believe an adult should not hesitate to articulate and explain the roots of his purposes and behaviour.
In future posts, I hope to explain more fully the implications and relationships between each of these ethical statements, and look forward to sharing ideas with others, who question their place in society and hope to make the world a better place,
Influences
This morning’s sun dawned on me,
a bleed of light in the ambient air,
impressing with its metaphor of glory.
And I asked: Is this the shining way…
the path?
And I asked: How many dawns
have bathed me in their
blare of blinding light?
And I say: Dawning’s beyond conception.
I don’t remember my mother’s face,
from that first day she held me
swaddled in her arms.
My earliest memories
are assembled pastiches
retrieved from jumbled collections,
fading images in forgotten albums...
Brothers, sister and me
in defining moments picked
from the scrabble of growing up...
Growing old.
And I ask: Is this the past I wanted?
My only possible inception?
And I say: Their love was good enough
to endure a lifetime.
And what of my own sons,
misunderstanding, misunderstood,
good as me at finding fault?
Is their's a future untold,
stories in the making,
or a history already
that I’m to blame for?
In the midst of this day’s dawning
a flight of geese honked and gabbled
up our street;
our suspiring phalanx
of cedars, arbutus, and Douglas fir
stood firm, and jagged against the sky;
a frog croaked in the yard,
awakening my admiration
for ants, and beetles…
and lowly worms.
My morning mantra harkened,
urged me to complete
The Circle…
‘We are defined
by what we are-not
As much as by
Who we think we-are,’
The moment I sense my self
I disappear,
become part of the very nature
that shapes my solitude...
my joy, my fear.
Goodness Me!
There are four categories of ‘goodness’ I can identify: Absolute, Fundamental, Conditional and Contingent. I’ll describe each in a moment, but first a little context.
I have long been baffled by the word ‘good’. More to the point, whenever someone tries to define what ‘good’ is, as opposed to what it is not, or what is bad, I find myself unconvinced. Their definitions and my own come up short, seeming as incomplete and arbitrary as castles (aka fortresses) in the sky.
But over the last few days I have been studying ethics from a Stoic perspective, reading an article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. There I came across the apparently standard definition of ‘the good’, to which “all parties agree”, namely that: “…possession of what is genuinely good secures a person’s happiness.” What tweaked me in that definition is the notion that it’s not what goodness ‘is’ that’s important, it’s what it does, or it’s effect.
It ‘secures a person’s happiness’.
Which, of course, begs the question: What is true happiness? Until we have answered that, we can’t possibly determine what constitutes a ‘good’ thing or event, and will be unable to direct our lives in a way that makes us truly happy. Like a dog, chasing his tail, we’ll only succeed in making ourselves dizzy.
That second variable of the goodness-happiness equation has become more clear for me recently, in the form of a personal philosophy that begins with the fundamental statement: Value Life. I say ‘fundamental’ because for me that is an ethical stance that does not require ‘proof’. I don’t expect everyone to feel the same way, and if anyone asks ‘Why?’ the only answer I can offer is ‘because it’s a part of who I am’. In fact, my recent meditations have led me to the conclusion that valuing life is at the very heart of my ethical being.
order sildenafil online Such lab tests might include extensive system calculate (CBC), erythrocyte sedimentation (ESR), not to mention urinalysis. If you are relying on the equipments like pepper spray for self defense then you are making yourself dependent on technologies that viagra prescription respitecaresa.org might fail for no visible reason. sildenafil tablets australia It is only the medication that could potentially be very harmful to the patient. And that is followed by a lot of cialis 100mg canada visits to the doctors, hospitals, and taking all sorts of unnecessary medications.With what’s been said so far, I can hazard a definition of ‘good’ that is meaningful and useful. For me an event, action or thing is good if it allows me and my community to live up to my fundamental principle of valuing life, because valuing life makes me happy. That’s not to say there aren’t other things that will make me happy, or that valuing life isn’t an ethical commitment fraught with contradictions.
However, I know that unless I make choices that do value life, I will not be truly ‘happy’. Worse, when I make choices that devalue life – and despite myself I do – I undermine my own happiness, usually in the pursuit of immediate gratification
So I now have a criteria for determining at least some of what will be good choices for me. Not good because they are laudable from other people’s points of view, but because they bring me closer to my own – let me use the word I prefer – fulfilment.
Now I can attempt a definition of the four categories of goodness I mentioned at the outset of this essay:
Absolute Goodness – I actually don’t believe such a thing exists, an act, or event or thing that everyone would agree was good, if they fully comprehended its nature. If I believed in god, or Platonic ideals, I could speculate about the nature of absolute goodness, but I’m a spiritual-atheist, which precludes a belief in god or any sort of disembodied ideal.
Fundamental Goodness – That is, goods which directly relate to my personal philosophy and set of values. They are ‘fundamental’ because they are essential events, actions or things that express and make real my set of values. Unless I participate in, demonstrate or possess these goods I am not engaged in meaningful and positive ways with my world.
Conditional Goodness – We are conflicted beings, and almost all the ‘good’ we do or experience has side effects or consequences we don’t desire. Conditional goods are directly related to my values, but they are conflicted because, viewed from a different perspective, they are also contrary to them. For example, I value life, but must kill in order to live. That tension cannot be resolved, it can only be mitigated by best possible choices.
Contingent Goodness – These are goods, not directly related to my philosophy or values, but which add to my well-being and enjoyment of life. Most of the good things I experience, enact or possess fall into this category, and if I examined them I might discover that they do support my values indirectly, or at least don’t contradict them. Wealth, for instance, doesn’t necessarily contradict my desire to value life, and it might give me the means to support causes that value life more effectively… or my unrestrained pursuit of wealth might damage life on this planet in irreparable ways.
MAGA-lomania isn’t great, eh? It’s dangerous!
Saw a picture the other day of an Albertan wearing a baseball cap with Let’s Make Canada Great Again emblazoned on its peak.
I suppose it’s not surprising that a Trumpian brand of nationalism is spreading north of the 49th. There will always be a segment of the population drawn to what is essentially a fascist ethic. It’s sad to see, though. Our saving grace – for the time being – is we don’t have an egoistic personality of Trumpian MAGAtude to incite Canadian worshipers to the kind of nonsense exhibited in Washington DC recently.
Before the madness takes root here, we should consider what the historic ‘greatness’ this Albertan proclaims consists of, then compare it to a version of greatness that isn’t a lie.
When, in the mid-16th Century, Jacques Cartier ‘claimed’ the territories he had explored for King Francis I of France, he was ignoring the fact that the land was already occupied. ‘Ignored’ doesn’t quite describe the Eurocentric hubris and nascent French nationalism of that historic moment. The fact that the land was already inhabited simply didn’t occur to him, which is tantamount to saying the original ‘owners’ were not really considered people.
That to me is not a mark of greatness; it’s a mindset that resulted in despicable acts of genocide by colonizing nations the world over. ‘Greatness’ today – true greatness – will be the successful reconciliation, and genuine recognition that we have much to learn from and share with resurgent First Nations across this land.
The name ‘Canada’ is a Europeanization of the Iroquoian word kanata, meaning village. It’s a crowning irony that the very hunting-gathering cultures our Canadian ancestors almost destroyed, and which still face pervasive discrimination to this day, gave our country its name.
Having confiscated huge swaths of ‘free land’, including approximately 25 million square kilometres in North America, the world’s colonizing nations prospered during the transformation of the global economy in the 18th and 19th Centuries. And the economic ‘greatness’ of this continent and the European homelands of its settlers, was in large part due to the vast resources that could be extracted, grown and eventually manufactured here.
Most colleges already have numbers along with literacy applications, but teachers remain for you to their very viagra online own gadgets for you to occur on top of interesting training pertaining to other subject locations. Therefore, ED, or male impotence is buy cialis mastercard an intimate relationship dysfunction or a mal-behavior of libido of human being, and development or maintenance of an erection incapability of male organ is relating to satisfactory performance of physical intimacy. Above mentioned herbs like punarnava, try address cheapest generic cialis varuna, shrigu, apamarg etc. are described from ancient times in our ayurvedic medicine system. A study conducted by Columbia University monitored 152 men suffering from impotence Men working in a factory or pilots should not take Kamagra Oral Jelly before going to their workplace Kamagra Oral Jelly is a brand name for generic levitra online Sildenafil Citrate Oral Jelly.But plundering, not living in harmony with or even sustainably managing the land, was the order of the day. As the industrial and consumerist revolutions took off, fuelled by an insatiable greed for more and more ‘raw materials’ clawed and hacked form the motherlodes appropriated in North America and all over the colonized world, the toll on the environment became increasingly ominous.
So the ‘greatness’ of North America has been based in part on the economic equivalent of an environmental reverse mortgage taken out on our continent… oh, I forgot, it wan’t really our continent to begin with, so in truth it’s a reverse mortgage taken out of other peoples’ land. Any way you look at it, the ‘greatness’ we’re so proud of in that equation is unsustainable, and to think of making ourselves ‘great again’ through that kind of rapacious appropriation doesn’t take us to paradise. It’s a fool’s dream.
So what could that misguided Albertan possibly aspire to as a form of ‘greatness’ not morally corrupt and environmentally disastrous? What would give us true pride?
Never in the long record of evolution has there been species that could consider its actions and circumstances, look into the future, and consciously proclaim: ‘What we have done and are doing is neither morally acceptable nor sustainable.’ Humanity is the first life-form that can deliberately adopt an ethic that goes beyond the cruelty and ultimately self-destructive impulses summed up in the phrase, ‘survival of the fittest’, or more aptly in the 21st Century, ‘bloating of the richest’.
Our only chance is to adopt lifestyles and technologies that allow us to live in harmony with each other and the environment, and which prove what intelligent, morally upright creatures we really are. That’s something no species or civilization has ever attempted, and – as with every historic challenge – it requires courage, vision and generosity of its champions, the true hallmarks of greatness.
CraigSpenceWriter.ca
The Speed of Light
Surely there’s enough room in the universe for everyone who has died.
That’s a relief, I suppose. It means there might… just might… be a heaven out there, even a god, who only need occupy a tiny corner of the 13 billion light year breadth of measured space and time… and who knows what lies beyond the known, how far we’d have to travel in our transcendental spaceships to reach the ever expanding membrane of infinity.
Language can say things it’s impossible to comprehend. Thirteen billion light years, for example. Uncle Franklin tried to describe the speed of light for me once. “If I flicked on a light switch, here in Chemainus, say at the tip of Bare Point, you’d see the beam – it’s a wave, actually, but for the sake of argument, let’s say you’d see that beam in just over a second, if you were standing on the moon, say in the Sea of Tranquility… one-point-two-five-five seconds to be exact, that’s how long it would take.”
Uncky Frank couldn’t have understood that most nine year olds wouldn’t have a clue what the heck he was talking about, of course. Or what the speed of light had to do with my father’s coffin, making its slow progress down the centre aisle of our church, borne on the shoulders of six strong friends and relatives. He was just trying to describe, after the fact, the theoretical speed a soul could fly according to his own theory of special relativity.
Mum and Dad used to laugh at Uncky Frank and his ‘weirdo theories’. “He should leave the science to Einstein, and stick to building houses,” Dad said. “He’s good at that.”
“His inquiring mind takes him to strange places,” Mum agreed, as if Uncky Frank’s brain was a poorly trained Pitt bull yanking him around on its leash.
They loved him, though. He was everybody’s favourite uncle.
“Your dad isn’t very far away, once you know ‘C’,” he said, sitting beside me at the wake. “That’s the constant that stands for the speed of light in a vacuum,” he added, when I gave him a puzzled, pleading look. “Three hundred thousand kilometres per second.” He smiled benignly.
“How far is it from your head to your heart?” he persisted. “Show me.” I put my left hand over my heart; my right on top of my head. “That’s how far away your dad is from you, always,” Uncle Franklin said. “He’ll never leave, and – at the speed of light – he’ll be with you in an instant, whenever you need him.”
Uncky Frank had a complete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, on a special shelf next to his favourite armchair. He’d read it every evening, as if it was the world’s longest novel, from A to Z with occasional side-steps to look up an incomprehensible word in another article, then another word in the explanatory article, and another, and another, and so on.
“Unless someone’s reading it, these are just lumps of masticated wood, glue and fake leather, gathering dust,” he told me once. “Knowledge doesn’t reside in books. Squiggles on a page don’t mean anything until someone reads them.”
To his dying day Uncky Frank claimed to be an atheist. I visited him near the end. Gaunt, pallid, and weak as he was, he still smiled and gazed at me with his pale blue eyes. He could tell what I was thinking, and put his left hand over his heart; his right on top of his head. “That’s how far away from you I’ll be, if you ever need me,” he said.
I tried not to show it, but he laughed. “Just cause I’m what you call an atheist, doesn’t mean I don’t believe something. A few more days, and I’ll be gone, but I’ll live on in your memory,” he smiled benignly.
“And when I die?”
“You’ll live on in the memories of your friends, your colleagues, your family. And I’ll be a smidgen of that, which is enough for me.”
Uncky Frank bequeathed me his set Encyclopedia Britannica. I browse them from time to time, but there’s no reference to any history of mine in there, just antecedents. The speed of light hasn’t changed, though, and the time it takes a beam to get from Bare Point to the Sea of Tranquility on the moon.
End Note:
Writing is rarely a linear process. For example, this video has a typical pedigree. Yesterday I was working on Episode 43 of The Mural Gazer. In this scene Buddy paddles out onto Cowichan Lake, teetering on the brink of suicide. There, he encounters the spirit of Hong Hing, the Chinese merchant, bootlegger and gambling den operator, depicted in Chemainus Mural #4, who is tying to dissuade him. Although he’s alive and talking, Hong Hing is decked out as a deceased, oriental patriarch, and he’s floating to the forever-after on the mirror-calm surface of the moonlit lake.
I’m on aqua incognito for this description, so I started researching Chinese funerary traditions online, a fascinating glimpse into the rites of an ancient culture.
At the same time, I have been trying to get my head around Immanuel Kant’s metaphysical theory of Transcendental Ideals. Although that’s not the kind of subject matter you can throw undiluted into a novel, as a thematic undercurrent, I believe speculative philosophy enriches stories. And the rites I was learning about the Chinese belief in an afterlife, particularly the burning of Joss Paper and representations of things the deceased need to be happy in their new world, evoked by association Kantian proofs of god, heaven and immortality.
There’s no logic to the sequence that lead to The Speed of Light, but its origins do trace back to The Mural Gazer.
What Sense Reveals
I’m not a poet, but in this instance, a novelist composing a sonnet, taken from the mind of the protagonist in my current work-in-progress, The Mural Gazer. Buddy Hope has decided to take the final, life defining step of ending his life. But he’s not approaching this ‘task’ from the usual anguished trajectory. Instead, he sees it as a logical conclusion, a job that needs doing, almost as if it were a household chore.
I’ve been trying to figure out how he came to this conclusion. Many of us have contemplated the act of suicide, not as something we would actually do, but as a way of getting underneath, or behind, or into the meaning of life. That’s not where Buddy’s head is at. He’s simply tired, and doesn’t look forward to another thirty or so years dragging himself through a world that has no purpose, no sustainable joy.
To paraphrase someone very close to me, who chose Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID), Buddy isn’t living anymore, he’s just existing. He’s depressed at the prospect of carrying on, when every moment takes him farther from that time in life when he believed in his purpose as a father, a reporter, an armchair philosopher.
The question hanging in the air at this point in the novel is: Will Buddy’s recollections and contemplation heading toward his final act change his mind. He’s composed his parting letter, and left it on the dining nook table of the camper he’s been living in as his home-away-from-estranged-home. He’s saying his veiled goodbyes to family and friends, and is about to drive out of cell range to his chosen spot. Nothing he’s considered so far has dissuaded him from deploying EEK, his Emergency Exit Kit.
What Sense Reveals isn’t written to a particular person; it’s written to all the people he has known and loved.
Cognitive dissonance as a state of mind
I have been reading two books lately that are giving rise to cognitive dissonance: Disloyal, a tell-all memoir by former Donald Trump acolyte Michael Cohen; and A New History of Western Philosophy, by Anthony Kenny.
There’s nothing anyone could write about Trump that would surprise me anymore, although Cohen’s account of the utter sleaziness of America’s president has confirmed in lurid detail the disgust I harbour toward this reptilian specimen. The word Cohen has not yet uttered, however, is almost more telling than what he has said.
Trump is portrayed as crass, vicious, misogynous, greedy, undisciplined… insane, pretty well sums up his character. I could have reeled off those epithets and more before reading what Cohen had to say. But the former ‘personal attorney to President Donald J. Trump’ has yet to attach the ideological label that explains the true threat Trump represents: The man is a fascist.
And what shocks me in Cohen’s account is how mesmerized Trump’s followers are by the bare-fisted power of ‘the Boss’, how overwhelmed they are by his all-consuming ego, which has become the ego of his political brand, the MAGA nation.
In true fascist form, Trump has latched onto the disgruntled facet of the American soul, and given it voice. He has justified for his followers all manner of bitterness and rebellion, and amplified their distrust of a political system that has certainly made itself worthy of condemnation. But the glaring irony of his presidency is that he, of all people, is the most ruthless user and abuser of average Americans. There’s only one American that truly counts in Trumpian logic: Donald J. Trump.
Trump has taken the US to the brink, and anyone who thinks the threat to democracy he represents was beaten in the recent American election is living a delusion. ‘The Divided States of America’ is an apt moniker for the US psyche right now.
Cohen’s book underscores the deviancy of a president who supposedly stood up for the common man in Middle America, while reaching out to other fascists of his ilk like Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Kenny’s history of Western philosophy attempts a distillation of the thinking that has led from Ancient Greece to ‘Philosophy in the modern world’. It’s fascinating in its scope; daunting in the depths it alludes to. Right now I’m reading about Kantian logic, and how it plays out in the formulation of morality and ethics.
A central theme of this tome is the quest for moral knowledge and thereby certainty with regard to ethical behaviour. Over and over again, philosophers have attempted to apply reason in response to the question: What is morally right and wrong? And why should I obey the edicts of morality, rather than simply look out for my own interests?
Kant’s ‘categorical imperative’ comes down to a statement that moral behaviour is ultimately self interest taken to its logical extreme. I won’t go into a detailed discussion about a philosophical conclusion I haven’t yet fully understood, but the categorical imperative basically says that to act morally, I should always ask before doing something: What if everyone behaved that way?
For example, why shouldn’t I steal whenever I want something and it’s obvious I can take it without being punished, either because I’m cunning, or powerful, or both. The answer is: If everyone behaved that way, there would be no such thing as private property, and the social structure I rely on to lead a better life would collapse. So I’m acting in my own, and everyone else’s interests when I adhere to the edict: Don’t steal.
Kant’s is just one perspective in the history of morality in Western philosophy. The point is, there have been great thinkers throughout the ages trying to answer the fundamental questions about right and wrong, and find some basis for ethical behaviour.
If you have persevered this far, you probably have identified the cognitive dissonance I am experiencing reading Michael Cohen’s Disloyal at the same time as Anthony Kenny’s A New History of Western Philosophy. It comes down to this: What’s the point in enunciating philosophical statements about morality and ethics when, at the end of the day, it’s always the immoral and unethical pit bulls like Trump that come into power?
I’ll suggest a couple of answers, but with the disclaimer that I can’t resolve the conundrum for anyone else. You’ll have to come up with your own answers for behaving in what you believe is a moral and ethical manner.
First, it’s a mistake to conclude that Donald Trump is behaving immorally or amorally. He may not have formulated his moral code in comprehensible English, but clearly he believes that you take whatever you can get, by whatever means are available to you, without the least concern for the harm you do to others. Lying, bullying and cheating are techniques for achieving an end, and with few exceptions, other people are a means to your ends, not entities you need concern yourself with.
There are millions of people in the world who share Trump’s morals, and always will be.
So, for ‘morality’ in a less selfish, less brutal and dishonest form to survive, it must be articulated, and espoused, and championed by millions of others. Always, and every day.
Morality isn’t a ‘pillar’, in any physical sense of the word. It’s not something that exists outside human consciousness, that you can put in place, then walk away from, secure in the knowledge it will hold up your sky. Morality and ethics are ideas that have to be stood up for every day, and exemplified by people who believe as strongly in their moral codes as Trump and his associates believe in their’s.
That comes down to the responsibilities that are the obverse side to our charters of rights and freedoms. Morality isn’t comprised in vociferous complaining about the excesses of Donald J. Trump and his ultra-rich coterie. It’s about how we live our own lives, and try to persuade others about what’s right and wrong, fair and unfair in the world around us.
Cognitive dissonance is an essential state of mind, when you think about it.
A throw-away life?
Thanks for checking out my first video post of Today’s Writes. This excerpt is taken from Episode 56 of my novel in progress, The Mural Gazer. At one level, it’s a philosophical but very personal take on suicide – not as a desperate act, but as the rational decision by a man who’s grown tired of living. So I don’t see it as a discussion of suicide per se, so much as an existential, inner conversation on the value of life without meaning.
Protagonist Buddy Hope is more sad than desperate. Sad, because purpose and meaning have drained out of is life, and the thought of continuing seems cowardly. He has arrived at this ‘to be or not to be’ moment, not in Shakespearean torment, but almost dutifully. The twisted irony of his circumstance is: his purpose in life has become to end it.
And what about those he’ll leave behind?
That becomes the real question. And Buddy doesn’t have an answer. He’s written his note. Said oblique goodbyes to his estranged wife, children, lover, and friends Bernice and Harry. But he knows his leaving will be a painful shock to them, and they will be left to struggle with the question: why? To wonder what they could have done to save him.
So another conundrum confronts him: Buddy realizes he has to commit a cowardly act, if he wants to discontinue his cowardly existence. His only consolation, if you can call it that? The belief that people will have to patch the fabric of their own consciousness with shared memories of him, and that mourning might, in a convoluted way, bring them together.
Is that a vain hope?
Today’s Writes are excerpts and reflections on some of my works in progress. They are an opportunity to share, and an invitation for people to participate in my story telling. Thank you for being here.